The school turnaround debate goes on. See Andy Smarick's first post , Bryan and Emily Hassel's reply , and Andy's rebuttal . Here's another round, again from Bryan and Emily Hassel of Public Impact .
Four quick responses to Andy's latest on turnarounds .
First, the IES study did not find that school turnarounds are futile, just that there's not much good research about them.?? If you look outside education, success rates for new start ups and for turnaround efforts look pretty similar, in the 20-30% range. There's just no evidentiary basis for Andy's belief that new starts are a higher-probability strategy.
Second, all of Andy's critiques of turnaround research apply equally to research on successful charter schools.?? In both cases, we have imperfect knowledge based on success stories. Let's get better info, but we'd be foolish not to use imperfect knowledge to help kids now. If we accidentally emphasize a few wrong factors (as in Andy's West Point example), that's better than doing nothing.
Third, one of the reasons we have so little good research on school turnarounds is that so few real school turnarounds have been attempted.?? Most district responses to chronic failure are just the same old warmed over, incremental strategies that may help mediocre schools get better but aren't up to the task of rescuing chronic failures.?? We'll never build the knowledge base about school turnarounds unless we really start trying them and studying them.
Finally, with the stakes as high as they are for kids in failing schools, why would we myopically limit ourselves to one strategy - new school creation - which is itself limited and uncertain? The magnitude of this problem is so huge, why not vigorously pursue both strategies - when both have worked in other sectors.?? Both will fail of be lackluster most of the time. So: Try, Try Again is the key.